Guy Penrose Gibson

Wing Commander · 39438 · United Kingdom

Died: 19 September 1944, aged 26
Fate: Killed in action

Biography

Wing Commander Guy Penrose Gibson, VC, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, was the founding commanding officer of No. 617 Squadron and the leader of the raid that gave the unit its enduring fame. Born in Simla, in British India, on 12 August 1918, he was educated in England, at St Edward’s School in Oxford, before taking a short-service commission in the Royal Air Force in 1936.

By the time he was given command of 617 Squadron in March 1943 Gibson was already a highly experienced and much-decorated airman, having flown bomber operations with No. 83 Squadron, a tour of night-fighter sorties with No. 29 Squadron, and a further bomber tour in command of No. 106 Squadron on Avro Manchesters and [[Avro Lancaster|Lancasters]]. The new squadron was formed for a single, secret purpose: the attack on the German dams using Barnes Wallis’s cylindrical “bouncing bomb”.

On the night of 16/17 May 1943, [[Operation Chastise|Operation Chastise]] sent nineteen Lancasters against the Ruhr dams. Gibson flew Lancaster ED932, coded AJ-G, leading the first wave against the Möhne dam and then circling under fire to draw the defences away from the aircraft that followed, before directing the survivors on to the Eder. For his leadership that night he received the Victoria Cross. He was killed on 19 September 1944 when his Mosquito crashed at Steenbergen in the occupied Netherlands while returning from a raid on Münchengladbach; he was 26. He is buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Steenbergen.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including Commonwealth War Graves Commission — Gibson, Guy Penrose and Wikipedia: Guy Gibson. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.

Photographs

Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. IWMFLM2354 — Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. Operation CHASTISE: the attack on the Moehne, Eder and Sorpe Dams by No. 617 Squadron RAF on the night of 16/17 May 1943. No. 617 Squadron practice dropping the 'Upkeep' weapon at Reculver bombing range, Kent. Close up of Avro Lancaster, ED932/G 'AJ-G', being flown by Wing Commander Guy Gibson at low level over the camera crew, after the practice.

ⓘ licence & credit
IWM staff photographers / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945._IWMFLM2354.jpgView source & full licence →

Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. IWMFLM2352 — Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. Operation CHASTISE: the attack on the Moehne, Eder and Sorpe Dams by No. 617 Squadron RAF on the night of 16/17 May 1943. No. 617 Squadron practice dropping the 'Upkeep' weapon at Reculver bombing range, Kent. Wing Commander Guy Gibson flies at low level along the shore in Avro Lancaster, ED932/G 'AJ-G', at the end of the practice.

ⓘ licence & credit
IWM staff photographers / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945._IWMFLM2352.jpgView source & full licence →

Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. CH9926 — Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. King George VI, accompanied by Wing Commander Guy Gibson (right), talking to Pilot Officer L G Knight RAAF, during his visit to No. 617 Squadron RAF at Scampton, Lincolnshire, following the Dams raid. Knight and his crew launched the 'Upkeep' weapon which successfully breached the Eder Dam in Germany.

ⓘ licence & credit
Hensser (F/O), Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945._CH9926.jpgView source & full licence →

Burial / commemoration

Cemetery: Steenbergen-en-kruisland Roman Catholic Cemetery, Netherlands

Operations on this date. 3 raids in this archive were flown on the night of 19 September 1944: Bremerhaven · Domburg · Berlin. (Cross-reference by date — not in itself confirmation this airman flew it.)

197 others in this archive died on 19 September →

Timeline

9 July 1940 Gazetted: DFM
Distinguished Flying Medal
17 November 1942 Gazetted: DSO
Distinguished Service Order
16 May 1943 Flew Operation Chastise
Pilot, ED932 AJ-G — Returned
28 May 1943 Gazetted: VC
Victoria Cross
19 September 1944 Died
aged 26

Crew & operations

Flew as Pilot with No. 617 Squadron (Dambusters).

Operation Chastise (16 May 1943) — aircraft ED932 AJ-G (Avro Lancaster) — Returned

Crew: Frederick Michael Spafford (Bomb aimer) · J Pulford (Flight engineer) · George Andrew Deering (Front gunner) · Torger Harlo Taerum (Navigator) · R D Trevor-roper (Rear gunner) · Robert Edward George Hutchison (Wireless operator)

Awards

Victoria Cross (VC) — gazetted 28 May 1943

Awarded for his leadership of No. 617 Squadron on Operation Chastise, the breaching of the Ruhr dams on the night of 16-17 May 1943, attacking first and then circling the dams under fire to draw flak from the following aircraft.
Distinguished Service Order (DSO) — gazetted 17 November 1942
Distinguished Flying Medal (DFM) — gazetted 9 July 1940

Source: CWGC casualty record: GIBSON, GUY PENROSE → · Commonwealth War Graves Commission